


Sometimes They're Just Dicks

by OldToadWoman



Category: The Dead Zone
Genre: Bromance, Don't Have to Know Canon, Gen, Humor, M/M, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-26
Updated: 2011-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/OldToadWoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny and Bruce discuss nomenclature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes They're Just Dicks

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: language, crude male humor (see title)  
> spoilers: _Empire Strikes Back_ (I believe strongly in spoiler warnings)
> 
> This story could be interpreted as slash, pre-slash, or even just a platonic moment between friends. I wrote this for Bruce and Johnny of _The Dead Zone_ , but I can easily imagine this conversation taking place between almost any two characters. Normally, I'd admit that's a sign of bad writing. The goal is to give each character a distinctive enough voice that they aren't interchangeable, but...sometimes boys are just boys. (If you didn't watch _The Dead Zone_ , all you really need to know to follow the dialog is that Johnny sometimes gets psychic visions when he touches certain things.)

"Dong?" Bruce suggested.

Johnny stared out the car's side window at the scenery and did his best to ignore him. "That sounds like a bell."

"Donnnngggg," Bruce repeated. "Yeah, it does. Pecker?"

"That sounds—" Johnny hesitated, searching for the word. "—old."

"Old?"

"When I was a kid," Johnny explained, "we used to go ice skating on the pond when it froze over. Hockey or mostly just horsing around. The last house we passed on the way to the pond was old man Fredrickson. I guess he didn't like listening to a bunch of squealing kids all winter. Or maybe he was just a jerk. Anyway, _every time_ , he'd yell at us as we passed by, 'You know you stay out on the ice too long, your peckers'll freeze up and fall off!'"

Bruce laughed.

"I swear. _Every time_. 'Serve ya damn right when your peckers freeze off!' It's an old man word."

" _You're_ an old man now."

"Bite me."

"Bite your what? We're still establishing nomenclature here."

He didn't bother to answer. Johnny frowned at the lush spring growth that was making the trip scenic, but largely obscuring the few signs they had passed.

"Dick?"

Johnny shook his head. "It's an insult. Are you going to admit we're lost?"

"I'm not lost. So prick is out for the same reason?"

He nodded. "It also makes me think of spinning wheels and bleeding fairy tale princesses, which is a very weird association."

"Manhood?"

"That's more a metaphysical concept than a body part," Johnny said. "Don't you think?"

" _Throbbing_ manhood is not metaphysical," Bruce insisted.

"Have you been reading romance novels again?"

"I do _not_ read romance novels."

"Uh-huh. 'Throbbing manhood' and you don't read romance novels. Sure."

"Mast?"

Johnny turned away from the view of greenery blurring past the window and stared at Bruce. "Mast?"

"Some of those romance novels that I don't read involve pirates," Bruce said as he turned down a narrow shaded road.

Johnny craned his neck and looked dubiously out the back window. "I'm not very nautical."

"Are you sure? You could have a whole 'shiver me timbers' theme."

"I get seasick and I sunburn. I didn't see a sign on that last turn."

"I think you're being a touch too literal. The whole point here is that you need to loosen up. Sword?"

"Let the pirate theme go, Bruce. Also, I'm not comfortable with weaponry metaphors. Cannon, gun, pistol … violent imagery in that context is just disturbing."

Bruce spared a glance away from the road and looked sideways at Johnny. "Here's a winner: how about one-eyed wonder worm?"

Johnny finally broke up with laughter. "Okay, that's a good one. I haven't heard that since high school."

Bruce nodded. "It's a classic."

Johnny giggled again and then sighed. "It lacks a certain romantic finesse though."

"You want romantic finesse, huh?"

"It would be nice."

"Quivering tower of ebony."

Johnny blinked. "Ebony?"

"Not applicable to everyone admittedly. How about marble? Marble comes in all sorts of colors, even that pink veiny thing you white people get going on."

Johnny squinted at Bruce. "That," he said, "is a terrible metaphor. And you _are_ lost."

"I know exactly where I am. The precise road where we're supposed to turn, maybe not so much. But I know where we are and I know where we're going and we _will_ get there."

"The ebony tower works as a compass needle too?"

"In a pinch, yes. Why is it a terrible metaphor?"

"Quivering tower of marble?"

"Pink marble," Bruce said, not even trying to pretend he wasn't snickering.

"Marble," Johnny pointed out, "does not quiver. Jell-O quivers, not marble."

"Quivering tower of Jell-O just doesn't have the same ring to it," Bruce said. "It's not what you would call impressive."

"No quivering towers at all. Quivering towers of any kind are out."

"Fine. Willy?"

"Willies are when you get the creeps."

"Johnson."

"That's a surname. I don't even know where that came from. It makes no sense. And the worst part is that, law of averages, out there somewhere there are probably dozens of poor saps who are now walking jokes because Mrs. Johnson thought it was a good idea to name the baby Willy or Dick or Peter." Johnny thought about it a moment longer. "Or Harry."

Bruce chuckled. "See, you have a filthy mind. You should be better at this than you are. Wiener?"

"No. No wiener. No salami. No sausage. No meat products. Nothing with connotations of chewing."

"Ouch." Bruce winced. "There is something very wrong with the way your brain works. You know that?"

"There's been at least one article written up in a national medical journal that would agree with you."

"Oh, yeah. 'Voices From The Death Zone'. Right?"

"That wasn't in a medical journal. Although that one wasn't that bad. I got a lot of mail from cute goth girls after that was printed."

"And underwear. Do not forget the underwear."

"I know you think I'm holding out on you, but I swear it was mostly just visions of laundry baskets and dresser drawers. Underwear doesn't get out much. No, it was 'Brain Injuries And Aberrant Thought Patterns As Illustrated by the Unusual Case of John S.' that was published in _JAMA_." John scowled at the memory. " _That_ was low."

"You're a terrible liar, Johnny. Laundry baskets? You think I ever bought that? You are totally holding out on me."

Johnny smiled, but refused to say more.

"Winky?"

Johnny stared at Bruce in silence. Eventually, Bruce turned to look at him and Johnny winked. "Winky, seriously?"

"We're running out of options here. We're going to be down to wee-wee and pee-pee soon. Oh, wait," Bruce thumped the steering wheel in victory. "Cock! Cock is a good solid word."

"It's a rooster. It makes you think it's got feathers on it or something. And then when people talk about cock fights you get weird mental images and there's this subtext thing happening." Johnny waved vaguely in the air and stared back out the window.

"You are impossible, y'know that?" Bruce asked. "Just pick one. You have to stop calling it ' _it_ '. You sound like you're in junior high school."

"Oh, and wiener doesn't sound like junior high school? Also, you're lost. And what's wrong with penis?" Johnny asked. "It's a penis. Call it a penis."

"To your doctor, maybe. 'Doctor, my penis has this funky green discharge, is that normal?' It's a clinical word. And I'm not lost."

"I don't need to know about your funky green discharges."

"That's was a hypothetical example."

"If you say so."

Bruce narrowed his eyes at the road and refused to acknowledge Johnny's smirk.

"Genitalia is twice as clinical so don't even go there," Bruce said after a moment's silence. "And please don't call it the male organ. The word _organ_ always reminds me—"

"—of church," they both finished.

Bruce laughed. "Yeah, I guess your mom was about as bad as my dad, huh?"

"They're both spinning in their graves right now, I imagine. You know what my mother used to say? Man parts."

"Man parts?" Bruce asked with another laugh.

"As in, 'Don't forget to wash your man parts,' which over the years gradually became just 'Don't forget your man parts.' Like I might forget to take them into the shower with me."

Bruce snorted. " _That's_ a mental image I could do without. Thank you. You want to know what my mother said? Dangly bits. As in, 'Keep your dangly bits to yourself!'"

"I don't even want to know what you were doing that your mother had to tell you that."

"It was all perfectly innocent."

"I'm sure it was."

"I just like to air dry is all."

"Mental images, Bruce, mental images."

"How about hot rod?"

"I'd feel obligated to get a tattoo."

"I give up. You call yours whatever you want. Mine is a lightsaber."

Johnny winced. "I'm never going to be able to watch those movies the same way again."

"Zhwooom!!"

"You are destroying my childhood. Are you happy?"

"Freeemmmm, nnnrrruuunnnn!" Bruce let the car slalom gently between the edges of the road as he amused himself with lightsaber noises. "Remind me for next Halloween, I'm buying you a pair of those white karate pajamas. You'll look just like Luke Skywalker."

"Whatever. I'm still not calling it a lightsaber."

Bruce dropped his voice as low as he could manage. "Come to the Dark Side, Luke."

"Oh, see, that's just wrong. You know Darth Vader was Luke's father, right?"

"Ah, man, why do you always have to go and spoil the ending to everything?"

"Psychic equals spoilers. Deal."

Bruce grunted.

Johnny stared quietly out the window for another half mile. "Bruce, can I ask you something in all seriousness? It never leaves this car, I promise. Just between you and me. Are you lost?"

"Just between you and me? It never leaves this car?"

"Promise."

"We might be _slightly_ lost, but as long as we don't stop for directions, no one ever has to find out."

"Oh, good, I was worried there for a minute."


End file.
